This dissertation examines contemporary changes in relations and forms of urban governance by focusing on neighborhood associations in Tucson and analyzing their practices and experiences in the midst of an emerging trend that values collective action and direct democracy. This urban ethnography focuses on practices, strategies, and ideologies of neighborhood associations to discuss issues of representation, participation, and social integration. This dissertation is based on fieldwork conducted for a total of 24 months between 2005 and 2007. It combines participant observation and in-depth interviews with Tucson residents, members of neighborhood associations, and City and non-governmental organizations' officials.This work is presented in three main parts divided into several chapters. In the first part, I provide a general review of the development of concepts of governance and representative democracy in contemporary as well as earlier times. I aim to contextualize the work of neighborhood associations within a general movement towards more direct participatory democracy and argue that a new understanding of the transformations impacting the functioning of representative democracy is crucial to its preservation as a central institution of social integration.The second part of this dissertation presents an analysis of fieldwork data and argues that neighborhood associations are positioning themselves, at the local and global levels, as an important part of the emerging discourses and practices of civil society. Within this broad context, neighborhood associations engage in a variety of activities, pursue multiple strategies, and adopt very different ideologies. A central idea that results from this analysis is that neighborhood associations greatly value practices of direct democracy and strive to exercise greater control over processes of representative democracy in order to prevent its perceived deficiencies from thwarting their projects and corrupting their ideals.The third part extends the data analysis and provides a political and historical reconstruction of neighborhood associations and their cultural evolution as a continuation of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. I also argue that there is a powerful drive towards the global implementation and exercise of direct democratic processes. I draw on the example of Morocco's urban governance reforms and discuss its growing neighborhood associations to show the delicate and conflicted paths they tread between their engagement with the existing system of representative democracy and their attempts to step beyond the limitations of that system to carry out some of the ideals of building a direct and participatory urban democracy.

ABSTRACT Title: Teenagers and their perception of fashion brands (Ungdomar och deras uppfattningar om modevarumärken) Number of pages: 42 Author: Louise Kindblom Tutor: Göran Svensson Course: Media and communication studies C Period: Autumn term 2007 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala university Purpose/Aim: To achieve a deeper level of knowledge and a better understanding of high school teenager`s perception of the three fashion brands Gucci. H&M and Canada Goose and too distinguish potential gender related differences in their perceptions. Material/Method: A questionnaire about fashion brands delivered to three schools in the Stockholm area. Main results: Teenagers perceptions of the three fashion brands Gucci, H&M and Canada Goose are more different than similar. This differences in teenagers perceptions are discernible in a comparison between the most usual and unusual associations that are related to each of the brands. Gucci is associated with success, wealth, excitement and uniqueness. H&M is for example seen as earth-bound and has in a comparison with the other brands reached the highest level of positive associations. Canada Goose is seen as dishonest, and has the highest level of negative associations. Gucci and H&M are the strongest brands. They are strong regarding different aspects. Canada Goose is the least strong fashion mark. There are differences in perceptions of gender but they are quite seldom very big even if there are exceptions from this rule. The differences are more subtle. Keywords: fashion brands, teenagers, perceptions, strong brands, associations, image, Kellers pyramid

Denna uppsats behandlar varumärkesassociationer samt dess påverkan på varumärkeskapital. Uppsatsen är genomförd som en fallstudie och undersöker hur det svenska telekommunikationsföretaget Tre tolkar konsumenters associationer till varumärket Tre. Detta jämförs sedan med de varumärkesassociationer som föreligger kring Tres varumärke på marknaden. Varumärkesassociationer formas primärt hos konsumenter och är således inte enbart en process som företag styr. Detta innebär dock inte att associationerna är opåverkbara från företagets sida. En central faktor som påverkar skapandet av varumärkesassociationer har i denna uppsats påvisats vara konsumenters kontakt med företaget, där framförallt den första kontakten tenderar att forma associationerna. Konsumenter behöver inte ha en personlig relation till varumärket för att forma sina associationer då word-of-mouth har visat sig ha en stor påverkan på skapandet och spridandet av varumärkesassociationer. Företags varumärkeskapital gynnas av många samt positivt betingade varumärkesassociationer. För det i uppsatsen studerade företaget tenderar dock en majoritet av de kartlagda associationerna att vara negativa, vilket i sin tur har tenderat att skada det totala varumärkeskapitalet. En annan intressant aspekt av detta är att många bärare av dessa negativa associationer inte själva har en personlig erfarenhet av företaget. Detta understryker kraften av word-of-mouth samtidigt som det betonar vikten av att som företag ha en välarbetad kundstrategi då den har en direkt påverkan på företagets varumärkeskapital. I många framträdande teorier beskrivs det att förmedling av varumärkesassociationer gynnas av att framhäva emotionella faktorer, då dessa sägs ha en djupare påverkan på människors värderingar än vad funktionella faktorer har. Vad uppsatsens empiri dock har kunnat påvisa är att detta är svårt i en teknikorienterad bransch då konsumenter värderar funktionella faktorer högre än emotionella. De funktionella faktorerna tenderar även att ha en stor betydelse för varumärkesassociationer. Uppsatsen presenterar avslutningsvis en nyskapad figur vilken sammanfattar strategiskt betydelsefulla områden som Tre fördelaktigt kan använda sig av för att skapa ett starkt varumärkeskapital. / In this paper brand associations are examined, along with its impact on brand equity. The thesis is completed as a case study and examines what the Swedish telecommunication company Tre believes are the markets associations of their brand.  This is later compared with the consumers actual associations with the brand Tre. Brand associations are primarily formed by consumers and are thus not only a process of corporate governance. This does not mean that the associations are impossible to influence by the company. The result of this study has shown that a key factor influencing the creation of brand associations is consumers’ contact with the company, where especially the first contact tends to form associations. Consumers do not need to have a personal relationship with the brand to form their associations as word-of-mouth has been shown to have a major impact on the creation and distribution of brand associations. Brand equity grows stronger by many and positively charged brand associations. However, for the company Tre, the majority of the identified associations are seen as negative, which in turn tend to harm the overall brand equity. Another interesting aspect of this is that many carriers of these negative associations do not have a personal experience with the company. This underlines the power of word-of-mouth, while emphasizing the importance to have a well-made customer strategy as it has a direct impact on the company's brand equity. Mediation of brand associations is in many prominent theories described favored by highlighting emotional factors as they are said to have a deeper impact on human values ​​than functional factors. This has, by this study´s empirical thesis, shown to be difficult in a technology-oriented industry where consumers value the functional factors higher than the emotional factors. The functional factors also tend to have a important influence on brand associations. The conclusion of this paper presents a new figure that summarizes strategically important areas for the company Tre to create stronger brand equity.

No description available.

Polistes dominula and P. fuscatus often nest in bird nest boxes. Potential competition between wasps and birds was studied by removing wasp nests from some boxes. No difference in nesting success of breeding birds was found between boxes with wasp nests and those in which wasp nests were removed. Boxes that never had a wasp nest and boxes from which wasp nests were removed differed greatly in bird occupancy, suggesting that birds detected previous wasp presence. Some bird species gain protection by nesting near wasp nests. Birds may prefer to nest near wasp species that inflict higher sting pain levels. A rank correlation of data from published studies provided no evidence that pain level influences which wasp nests are most attractive to nesting birds. A comprehensive table of bird-wasp nesting associations (listing 121 bird species, 28 wasp species and 4 bee species) is included here.

No description available.

This dissertation applies the theoretical perspective of gender relations and develops methods to understand and analyze the movement of women from the center of social systems to its margins when these systems are undergoing rapid socio-economic and political change. This research responded to the pressing need for the application of newer, more appropriate theoretical and methodological perspectives to examine shifting power relations between women and men in areas undergoing transformation. In the case study, I investigate the locus of power in a system of cooperatives in the Departement du Nord, Haiti and discover how and why female members are being relegated to the periphery of this development programme. I find that a system of gender-based social power is causing unequal opportunities and oppressive power relations for female members in the cooperatives. I analyze how and why this system of social power causes conflict when the interests of female and male members differ in the cooperatives and I explore strategies for change. This dissertation also contributes to a greater understanding of the power dynamics which exist when one group holds different preferences and practices to the dominant group whose framework is the one considered acceptable in the society.

This study was prompted by the lack of information on women traders associations in the African context. Women’s participation in the informal economy is increasing due to factors such as high unemployment rate, women’s lower education level compared to men and, the flexibility of entry and exit in the informal sector compared to the formal sector. In general, informal workers do not hold any formal contract determining minimum wage, employment benefits or social protection. Women continue to face very high barriers to have access to education and training because of the on going gender biases in many societies. Traders associations could hold the potential to relieve women traders from their daily burdens in public markets. This study uses the theory of social exclusion to examine different barriers women face in the market, and the role of traders associations hold in their inclusion. The nature of the informal sector makes it difficult for traders associations to organise and provide services to their women members. Poorer women within traders associations have serious challenges in trying to be more assertive in their local communities and markets. Gender, class, kinship and ethnicity could all combine to account for their low status in their communities. Women’s integration within trade organisations depends largely on the negotiation of their terms of inclusion. Unfair terms of inclusion can potentially lead and continue unequal power relations as well as wealth inequality among traders. Qualitative methods were used in this study of women traders in St Balikuddembe market, Kampala, Uganda. Over a period of six weeks, 25 days were spent in the market carefully observing women at work, and then conducting 20 individual interviews and two focus group discussions. The role which traders associations play in women’s lives, the influence they hold in the association and the procedure of integration in the market were examined. The study revealed that the size of the main traders association for women determines the level of exclusion and its implication in its women members lives. Although OWA could be defined as an MBO, there is in fact a gap in their organisational structures in order to help women integrate better the market. It is in fact too large to be able to reach members, and is not accountable to them. The effect of social exclusion was identified in the gender, class and age of the women. Women traders of St Balikuddembe market, in trying to achieve inclusion, form smaller self- help groups in addition to the large one. Both kinds of association play very different roles and perform different functions which are equally important in the lives of the women traders. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Moving groups are associations of stars which originated from the same star forming region. These groups are typically young (< 200 Myr) since they have not dissipated into the galactic field population. Over the last 15 years, roughly 10 such moving groups have been found with distances < 150 pc (7 with distances < 100 pc), each with a unique velocity and position. This work first investigates the likelihood to resolve star from two moving groups (AB Doradus and Beta Pictoris) using high spacial resolution optical interferrometry and found 5 AB Doradus stars and 1 Beta Pictoris star with declinations > -30 could be spacially resolved. To more deeply characterize individual groups, we used the 2.7m telescope at the McDonald Observatory to observe 10 proposed AB Doradus stars and 5 proposed Octans-Near stars (3 probable members, 2 possible) with high resolution (R ~60,000) optical spectroscopy. Each group is characterized in three ways: (1) Chemical analysis to determine the homogeneity among members, (2) Kinematic traceback to determine the origin, and (3) Isochrone fitting to determine the age. We find the 8 stars in our AB Doradus sample are chemically homogeneous with [M/H] = -0.03 ± 0.06 dex, traceback to an age of 125 Myr, and the stars in this mass range are on the main sequence. The two deviants are a metal rich, potentially younger member and a metal poor, young star likely not associated with AB Doradus. In our Octans-Near sample, we find the 3 probable members have [M/H] = -0.06 ± 0.11, the stars do not trace back to a common origin, and the probable members are on the main sequence. In addition to these tests, we found that the probable members are slightly more lithium depleted than the Pleiades, implying an age between 125 and 200 Myr. Finally, we investigate systematic trends in fundamental stellar parameters from the use of different techniques. Preliminary results find differences in temperatures between interferrometric and spectroscopic techniques to be a function of temperature with a interferrometric temperatures being cooler by an average of 36 ± 115 K. We also calculated the chemical abundances as a function of condensation temperature for our moving group sample and predict 2 stars in AB Doradus could represent the initial star forming environment and discuss the implications for planet hosting stars in nearby moving groups. This updated characterization technique allows for a deeper understanding of the moving group environment. As future, high precision instruments emerge in astronomy (Jame Webb Space Telescope, GAIA, 30m class telescopes), moving groups are ideal targets since these associations will help us understand star forming regions, stellar evolution at young ages, constrain stellar evolutionary models, and identify planetary formation and evolution mechanisms.

This thesis has explored the relationship between affiliation with voluntary associations and the independent variables of income, education, sex, health, living alone, and age of a sampling frame of 65 and older citizens of Delaware County, Indiana. Additional information received through use of a survey questionnaire included data, the perceived reason for un-involvement as well as categories of desired involvement. Associations considered in this thesis were placed in seven categories fraternal/service, church related, recreational, job related, civic/political, adult leadership, and other. Each variable was then considered in relation to each of these categories. This research supports the hypothesis that older citizens in Delaware County are involved in voluntary associations.